Shoot Your Heart Out — From the Founder

First of all, we would like to thank Jordynn for dedicating her birthday to fundraising for Camp Crescent Moon and Love Beyond Limits, and for having the love in her heart to do so.

We would like to thank the team:

Paige Lizardo, who has worked diligently on sponsors, raffle prizes, and the whole putting together of this event.

Ebony Batiste

Mercedes Samudio

Melissa Watanabe

and Gayle Dawn.

We would like to thank our vendors, our sponsors, our participants and supporters.

We wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without Zakiyyah Drew, a mentor at Love Beyond Limits and an intricate part of what we do on a daily basis.

We would like to thank our mentees in the program who took the time to come out and support this fundraiser:

Faith

Jada

Bri

Sara

Gabe

Maleka

Jordynn

and a special thank you to Makaila, who not only participated as a volunteer but also got her school involved. Thank you to the ladies who came from Millikan High School as well as to Ms. George, the Female Leadership Academy teacher and overseer, who has groomed these young ladies… The girls came out and did an amazing job, helping and setting up and just being eyes and ears and hands over the whole event. I really appreciate them for that.

We would like to thank Vanessa, one of our parent volunteers.

Thank you to our DJ, DJ Count, who is present and ready for any event that Love Beyond Limits puts on. He always plays great music and interacts with the crowd in a way that helps our events flow freely. His outgoing personality and his willingness to give back to the community has been such a blessing to us.

We would like to thank our amazing referees who have been with us for two years, Jason and Juan.

We would like to thank our incredible mentors, Ti and Claudio, and their amazing catering business, California Creationz, which has effortlessly given to Love Beyond Limits in so many different ways. For this event, they provided food for our vendors, our volunteers AND our players. We really appreciate that.

We would like to thank each and every participant… each parent, family member, and friend who came out to show their support… and each community member who donated.

My father, who is no longer with us, has two brothers who never miss an event that their nieces put on. I would like to thank Jerry and Phillip Woods, and my auntie Niecy Woods, who is always here for us.

Thank you to my cousin Sheila Stevens who is not only a part of our Dream Team but a really important part of Love Beyond Limits. We owe her a lot of thanks, because there is a lot that she does on the back end of Love Beyond Limits, helping us to complete multiple tasks for our young people.

Thank you to Jimmy Chris who endlessly gives us his feedback, support, advice and insight.

To my amazing intern Wardah who has been in the office working in the background, making things happen, doing any little or big task in order to help us pull this thing off. We appreciate her.

We have been prepping for this event for about 6 months. There has been a lot of hard work and dedication—many late nights, emails, texts and phone calls—that went into making this happen so again, I would like to thank the whole team.

Amidst all of the tragedy and violence happening around the world, this event, put on by a 14-year-old young lady, exuded love. For example, we enjoyed the participation of the Signal Hill Police Association, bridging a gap between police, who serve our communities, and the community.

Our vendors, sponsors and participants stretched from Orange County to South Central. We had vendors and participants from the Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley areas. We had players and participants from Long Beach and Signal Hill. We had a variety of different high schools and middle schools. We had players from Compton and entertainment from South Central. This event was able to bridge not only communities but genders and races and roles. We had men and women and children. We had Blacks and Whites and Hispanics and Asians. We had people of different faiths and denominations, people of different views and walks of life and understandings of the world… who all came together for this one event to not only support this young lady but to support our communities.

To bridge gaps between communities is a beautiful thing. It is one of Love Beyond Limits’ major missions—to love and understand and support ourselves in a way that we can not only give that love and support to others but receive it when it’s given to us.

With that said, this was an amazing event. It was a lot better than it was last year, which means it will be 10 times better next year.

We will continue to do this in the name of Jordynn Lassiter and JD the Sickle Cell Hooper, her superhero, a strength created from something that Jordynn suffers from.

We want to continue to give to our youth and to our communities, to support our youth and support our families, to network and to bridge gaps in communities.

The day of the event was a beautiful day.

In light of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for family and friends, for community, for love. Thankful for all of the people who continue to support Love Beyond Limits’ mission, because we believe that the child you save could be your own.

Don’t forget to check out JD’s Corner, where Jordynn blogs about her successes, her struggles and how her superhero is helping motivate young people. Continue to visit our website and continue to engage with us on social media. Continue to give your time, your resources, your energy and your input. We are always open to help.